


run too much in parallel

by thisstableground



Series: less than ninety degrees [20]
Category: Do No Harm (TV)
Genre: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autism, Multi, Self-Acceptance, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:08:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22139827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisstableground/pseuds/thisstableground
Summary: Usnavi has free time for once, and he's gonna use it to finally become the productive, functional adult he knows he can be, no matter how concerned everyone else around him might be about the twenty new hobbies he's picked up in the last week.
Relationships: Ruben Marcado/Usnavi (In the Heights)/Vanessa (In the Heights)
Series: less than ninety degrees [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/713601
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	run too much in parallel

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: god i love adhd usnavi so fucking much. it might help to read _rise to me_ before this one.

Usnavi closes Ruben’s bedroom door behind him and leans into the living room to beckon Benny out of the apartment. The airport was rough, for more than one reason, but it’s just another thing they have to survive. “You didn’t have to wait for us, man, thanks.”

“Thought you might want some moral support. Besides, been a while since you practiced, don’t wanna get rusty, do you?” Benny jangles his keys questioningly. Usnavi gives a hesitant glance at Ruben’s apartment door, but he _did_ say he wanted to be alone.

“We’re coming right back if he calls me, though,” he says, and follows Benny to the car.

Like always, Benny’s at the wheel on the main streets and they pass most of the day that way, West 184th to Midtown to Battery Park then all the way back up to Inwood. He’s got the easy fearlessness of someone used to navigating a vehicle through Manhattan. Usnavi mostly only ever practiced in quiet places. Probably spent longer in the empty parking lots of other people’s high schools on a weekend than he did studying at his own, that last year before graduation.

Usnavi’s New York City to the bone, subways and elevated trains and foot traffic the arteries and veins that flow life through him, that he flows through. It’s such a rare occasion that he does get in the driver’s seat that he can’t really handle New York nightmare roads, but sometimes Benny decides that Usnavi’s gotten stuck way too long waiting for some metaphorical cancelled train in his life and shoves him in the cab so that he can get moving of his own accord.

That’s the whole reason he’d learnt in the first place, when it felt like he hadn’t been outside since the frostbite morning of their funeral that winter past, like he hadn’t said anything out loud that wasn’t _I’m fine_ or _you want a bag for that?_ for months. Benny had come in one day and literally carried Usnavi out of the bodega to his car, said “you’re learning how to drive”, and an Usnavi Needs A Break tradition started.

He wouldn’t say he has any _happy_ memories of that time. But Benny humming quietly in the passenger seat as Usnavi circled round and round and round parking lots learning his turns, Kevin Rosario taking some of his off-time every few weekends to take Usnavi further out through Roslyn or Port Harbor, places he never usually had reason to go just for the change of scenery, it’s at least a reassuring memory. It stopped him drowning. All his concentration on _mirror, signal, maneuver, stop, go, keep going, keep going,_ and someone always sitting beside him

It was Kevin’s idea, Benny told him later. Nobody had been sure that the store would stay running, nobody had known if Usnavi would graduate. Driving gave him a backup career as well as a distraction.

He could use that backup now if only Kevin still had the dispatch, though Usnavi’s no better at this than he was back then, passing his test probably only by a literal miracle. Worse now he’s out of practice, so it’s lucky the parking lot at Inwood 52 is empty: signals his turns too late, brake goes down too heavy, cuts it too fine on the faded paint marking out the spot so that Benny winces when the side-view mirror comes within a whisper of scratching along the wall beside them. He gets by, skin of his teeth but Usnavi always gets by.

His phone lights up in the centre console a while in. Benny checks it for him and says “Vanessa landed safe”, and Usnavi nods, relieved for her and relieved that it’ll probably make Ruben feel better too. Keeps the circle moving anyway, hour on hour till the afternoon’s fast fading alongside his focus, and when he’s started to get hopelessly sloppy he reverse-parks one last time, cranks the radio volume so they can hear it from the outside and they get out of the car.

Benny leans against the door. Usnavi sits on the hood with Big Pun leaking out the open window under the sunset blood red beneath the clouds. The years him and Benny have been doing shit like this together stretch way longer than the distance from Manhattan to San Jose. Things are always still connected. It’s not so far from A to B if you know the right ways to get there.

“I really needed this,” he says. “Thanks, Benny.”

“Any time.”

“Goddamn.” Usnavi lays back against the windshield, raises his hands to watch the fading light behind cast a golden aura round them. “Punisher the real dope. Put on The Sun and The Rain.”

“I ain’t your DJ,” Benny says, leaning in through the open passenger side window to change the track anyway. “Always saying he’s the shit then you skip half the album. Is Ruben gonna be alright?”

“Heart wants The Sun and The Rain, that’s what I’m gonna give it. He’s had worse.”

“Whatever, call it the real dope then jump right past The Dream Shatterer, that’s some bullshit. _You_ gonna be alright?”

“Yeah, I’ll cope. _I know the sun won’t wash awa-ay,_ —“ Usnavi sighs. “It’ll be harder without Vanessa. Sometimes she’s the only one who can help him. Sometimes neither of us can. We do what we can but it just really fucking sucks to care about someone and know they’ve been through hell, you know?. _The ra-ain, keeps fallin’ down—“_

“Yeah,” Benny says. “know. You realize it scared the hell out of me when I got that call off Vanessa saying she needed me to take you to urgent care last month? I don’t think I’ve heard Vanessa cry since we were kids. No, we’re listening to The Dream Shatterer now, don’t think I don’t know you’re about to ask me to switch the CD.”

“But my heart wants to listen to New York Giants,” Usnavi says. Benny ignores him. “What if she gets out west and realizes she wants something totally different than whatever I’m putting on the table?”

“That won’t happen.”

“Happened to you and Nina,” he points out, softly.

“That’s different. Me and Nina really cared about each other, but we only had like two months together before she went back and we both kinda weren't expecting it to work long-term. You and V, you’ve had years to get past all those things. Hell, the both of you fell in love with someone else and that worked out, how many couples can say _that_?”

“I guess that’s true.” Usnavi sits up. “Hey, but if you really had one foot out the door from jump street with Nina then how come you ain’t dated anyone since? It’s been well over a year and I don’t think you’ve called back _any_ of your first dates.”

Benny looks into the sunset for a while then clicks his tongue against his teeth, opens the car door. “We should head back to mine so we’re nearby if Ruben needs you.”

They’re only ten minutes out from Ruben’s place and they’ve been gone all day, but Usnavi knows a closed conversation when he hears it.

“Aite,” he says, rolling off the hood. “I’m picking the tunes though. New York Giants, gotta be done.”

***

Vanessa always says that Usnavi’s way too much of a morning person, but that’s just because he wakes up earlier than her so she misses him very first thing. Body always gets working long before his brain catches up. Slow registering the ambient sounds that mean Vanessa’s place, coconut scent that means Ruben as he leans over Usnavi to turn off the alarm on his phone. Automatic movement of getting up and pulling out three mugs to put some fuel in everyone’s tanks.

At the third click of ceramic on countertop Usnavi pauses, ghost of a pneumonia stab in his lungs. There aren't three of them right now.

“Still awake?” Ruben asks, suddenly next to him and clicking his fingers in front of Usnavi’s face. He’s better acquainted with fuzzy first-thing Usnavi than Vanessa.

“Hm?”

“Close enough. Got plans today?”

Usnavi puts the extra mug away and says “I’ma try and start writing my resume,” because it’s the first thing that comes to mind that isn't “this motherfucker of a cup just gave me a real bad de ja vu and I’m going back to sleep all day until it goes away.”

“I thought you weren’t gonna start looking for work til you were feeling better.”

“I’m feeling better enough.”

“You never slow down for long, do you?”

“Born fast livin’ fast,” he says, leaning sideways to put his head on the counter and watch the coffee drip into the pot. “But once I make this I’m gonna get back in bed and watch TV till you leave, ‘cause I’m getting pro at this relaxing thing.”

He isn’t, not at all, but he’s trying, wrapped in a quilt eating toast with a stream of that old 90s Batman cartoon going. It reminds him of staying over at Abuela’s on weekends as a kid, when she’d make him breakfast and they’d spend all morning watching Saturday cartoons on her tiny black-and-white TV in their pajamas. Except for the bit where Ruben slides back into bed fully-dressed to watch the show and make out with him, obviously. It’s such a good way to kill time before Ruben has to leave that they lose track completely, until Ruben checks his watch and double-takes away from Usnavi’s face. “ _Shoot_ , I was supposed to leave five minutes ago!”

Usnavi tugs him back by the tie. “But if you stay then there’s Batman and bed and boyfriend?”

“God, don’t— mm —don’t tempt me,” Ruben says, around kisses. He tastes toothpastey. “I already push it with the days off, and I don’t think _my boyfriend is cute_ will play as sympathetic as the _I have_ _debilitating PTSD_ angle.”

“I dunno, have you tried showing them a picture of me?”

Usnavi lies around a few more minutes after Ruben leaves but now it’s just boring and empty, so he shakes the toast crumbs out of the sheets on Vanessa’s bed, takes a shower with Vanessa’s shampoo, dries off with one of Vanessa’s towels, determined to get some momentum. Don’t think, just do.

Usnavi grabs a notebook out of Vanessa’s desk, sits on the couch with his bare feet kicked up on one of his boxes like a footstool. Stares at the paper intently, tapping a rhythm with his pen. Close to half an hour later, he’s only managed to come up with:

RESUME  
Usnavi De la Vega  
I owned a store

“Well, that ain’t it,” he says aloud to himself, frustrated.

There’s always the option of abandoning it but no, he’s getting things _done_ today. Music on in the background to help him concentrate, then Usnavi googles _how to write a resume,_ opens twenty tabs in quick succession and closes nineteen of them without reading because he absolutely cannot get stuck in a loop of rereading the same thing phrased differently for the whole day. Pretty soon he’s constructing the skeleton of a new resume, name and contact details at the top, subheadings for the sections he needs, and son of a bitch, he’s written his old 184th Street address. He hasn’t really adjusted to the fact it’s his _old_ place: it still just feels like an extended stay at Vanessa’s.

His hand twinges with a cramp like it always does when he’s stressed about whatever he’s writing, always making things harder than they need to be. He throws the pen down and walks away. Walks back. Walks away again to the door where his sneakers are and he’s not even thinking while he pulls his shoes on until he realizes he’s automatically started going to the bodega to get a packet of cigarettes and turns around with a sigh.

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” he says, and adds “hijo de puta” to cover all bases. Then fuck it, he scrawls a few lines as fast as possible despite the cramp, grabs his nearly-empty mug and pretty much throws himself out of the window onto Vanessa’s fire escape.

Usnavi drinks cold coffee and thinks about his own fire escape, where Mamá used to teach him clapping games, sitting in the summertime with an old tatter-edged towel under them so the hot metal wouldn’t burn their bare legs, and she’d listen with pride when he’d make up his own lyrics to fit her rhythms. His fire escape where he always tried to hide while he did his homework so his parents wouldn’t see him struggling to the point of tears with it. They always knew he was there: Pai would come out and say “dry those eyes, Usnavi, let your troubles fly away”. Then he’d take one of Usnavi’s discarded pages of mistakes and fold it deftly into a paper airplane that he’d throw over the railing, even though Mamá told Usnavi off for littering whenever he did that himself. This isn’t his fire escape where he’d sit alone and smoke his secret cigarettes years later.

But, he reasons, it _is_ Vanessa’s, outside an apartment where he’s laughed and cried and fucked countless times, where he’s had dinner and nightmares and stomach flu, sweet lazy Sundays and relieved end-of-work weekdays where he’s been so happy to open that front door and collapse tiredly onto Vanessa’s couch like it’s home. He’s stood on this fire escape to watch quiet sunsets with Vanessa, quiet sunrises with Ruben like he did at his own place, view different but always the same sun.

Alright.

Back inside, he checks his sheet of paper, Vanessa’s apartment address now written there, a scribble barely readable by human eyes and without the zip code because Usnavi can’t remember it. Nothing even close to a resume yet. It’s still more than he’s achieved on basically anything in the past month combined.

“Bueno,” he says, pleased, then he sits on the floor by the couch to open all his boxes till he finds his favorite photo of his parents that he’s always kept by his bed, and carefully stands the frame on Vanessa’s bedside table.

***

“Clean your crap off the table, food’s almost ready,” Usnavi says, taking the lid off the pot of rice and poking at it. Abuela Claudia always told him not to stir it during cooking because it makes it go gloopy, but he gets impatient. Or he totally forgets about it and burns it all to the bottom of the pan and it’s the biggest bitch in the world to clean. Sonny will just have to live with gloopy rice.

“This is literally all _your_ stuff,” Sonny says, sweeping everything back into its half-unpacked box.

“I know. I been tryna get it all sorted but there’s only so much space here.”

He’s storing some of his belongings at Ruben’s as well, but Usnavi had to get rid of a lot of it during the move, too impractical and too much effort to try and keep hold of it all. All the furniture and bulky stuff, and so much crap he had no reason to have kept as long as he did. Like why did he have so much random cardboard, for a start? Or just whole drawers full of loose screws and cables for god knows what. He’d got so tired of sorting through it it that he’d just said to hell with it and tossed basically anything that wasn’t useful, sentimental or sellable. It was actually kind of freeing, in a scary way. A new start.

“I like what you’ve done with the place so far, though,” Sonny says, indicating around at where Usnavi’s been trying to leave some De la Vega touches to Casa García: the photo of his parents at the beside, their old record player and vinyls he’s been listening to a lot since setting them up, his DR flag pinned on the wall above the bed. “This what you’ve been up to since Vanessa left?”

“Yeah, y’know, keepin’ busy, tryna keep myself entertained.”

“Unpacking is chores, not entertainment,” Sonny says, disapproving. “Learn how to have real fun, amigo, it’s no wonder you’re depressed.”

“Dame un respiro, I’m still new at this,” Usnavi says. “What even is it you kids are doing for fun these days? Dabbing? MDMA? Is that DIY slime stuff still a thing?”

“No slime, V told me you’re banned from anything that’s gonna gunk up her hairdressing equipment after the last time. Are you trying to be youthful now? Nobody wants that.”

“I’m youthful,” Usnavi says. “Oye, make yourself useful, get me those plates. Twenty-six is youthful.”

Sonny hands Usnavi the plates and opens the fridge. “Maybe for most people, but _you_ were born a middle-aged dad. Bet your first words were _hi, Hungry, I’m Usnavi!_ You want OJ? _”_

“Please. And my first word was _‘buela_ and Mamá told me everybody cried at how adorable it was. I just need a hobby _._ Gonna run out of boxes to unpack eventually.”

“And your go-to was party drugs and slime?”

“Look, I’ve never had one before, I dunno.” He sets the plates down on the table and takes his seat. “It’s difficult. Can’t do nothin’ that costs money, nor that's too far out because train fare. And nothing involving math.”

“Nobody does math for fun anyway, Usnavi,” Sonny says through a mouthful of food.

“Have I introduced you to my boyfriend?”

“Cierto, he’s got problems. But what do _you_ like to do?”

“¡No lo se! I haven’t had time to like things for years.”

Sonny gives Usnavi a shrewd, sad look. “You’re genuinely worried about this, ain’t you?” he says.

“Sólo un poco,” Usnavi says, pinching his fingers together to show really, just the tiniest amount. “I feel like people usually know how to have hobbies like, instinctively? Maybe you’re right and I’m too old to start now.”

“Don’t be puttin’ words in my mouth, I never said that. You just need to find the thing that makes you feel good, you don’t gotta get it right first time. It’s your time to try new stuff out! It’s exciting!” Sonny gestures expansively around himself with his fork, dropping rice on the floor. “You can do whatever you _want_!”

Sonny’s hype is always infectious: Usnavi finds himself nodding along enthusiastically. “Y’know what, you’re right!” he says. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s exciting! Okay!”

“There he is!” Sonny says, taking a victory bite of his dinner. “Yo, you overstirred the rice again, it’s all gloopy. You know Abuela would have words about that.”

“¡Lo siento, Abuela!” Usnavi says to the ceiling, then points at Sonny. “Not sorry to you though, I slave over a hot stove to provide for you and all you do is insult me? See if I invite you over again.”

“Eh,” Sonny shrugs, and carries on eating.

Once Sonny leaves after they clean up dinner, Usnavi steals a woollen beanie and a pair of gloves that Vanessa left in her dresser, drapes his own scarf untied around his neck, and sits out on the fire escape. It’s a cold night and he’s gonna be out here for a while. There’s some Thinking to be done.

It’s true, isn’t it? What Sonny was saying about how he doesn’t have to get it right first time. It’s a comforting thought: Usnavi can just do shit and nobody needs to know if he fucks it up. But what makes him feel good? Why doesn’t he know already? He likes coffee, obviamente, but he already drinks that. He likes listening to music but he does that whenever he has a spare moment already. He likes Ruben and Vanessa and all his other friends but he’s tryna learn how to enjoy alone time so he doesn’t flip his shit next time someone goes out of state.

What makes people feel good besides other people?

The sites Ruben linked him to to help with the depression stuff all say, eating well, exercise, practising mindfulness are theshit he should be doing. He could start with that, maybe? Ruben says to just take baby steps and not try to do too much all at once but it’s just a two birds one stone situation, making his hobbies the things he should be doing anyway to get happy. Besides, half the stuff he reads on those big lists of self-care tips barely count, if you think about it. Like, meditation, that’s just sitting, basically. Or cooking is only half a hobby because he’d have to eat anyway so it’s not really Doing Something. So he can bring in a few things all at once, then he’ll figure out what works faster. Why waste time, y’know? Usnavi gets stuck at standstills a lot but once he starts moving he’s never walked anywhere he could run and never run anywhere he could dance or jump or skip, slow and steady ain’t his style. There’s a momentum picking up now, and he wants to chase it.

*** 

Usnavi’s long been convinced that somewhere out there in the world there’s a cheat code for everything if only you can find it. At some point Vanessa musta clicked through the right combination of thoughts to level up to the “take a shower every day" skill. Ruben musta figured out the formula to get “brush my teeth every evening even if I fell asleep on the couch” down. Usnavi’s been searching for a walkthrough for this kinda shit his whole life and he’s finally found it now, he’s absolutely certain.

Sure, he’s been certain before, but this time it’s real. It’s different. And you know what, it’s kinda great. Is this what people always feel like when they eat properly and sleep more than five hours? No wonder everyone’s always talking about it. Why didn’t he do this years ago, when it’s really so easy: he’s making his bed every morning, showering every day, vegetables are happening. Like being a real person, he thinks to himself, though what he was before if not a real person he’s got no idea. A walking pile of tension and eyebags crammed into a hat. At the end of every day he’s beat, but it’s an exhaustion that he missed during depression apathy, familiar from the bodega but now it’s there by choice. Today Usnavi didn’t _have_ to be tired, but he chose to be, and he’s happy with it. He earned his night of rest

Skill unlocked: basic adult functions. ¡Wepa!

It’s sprinting the start of a marathon. Deep down Usnavi knows it. Radical change burns for like a week max, and inevitably he wears himself out or life gets in the way or he’ll just straight up forget rhe thing he was so dedicated to at the start of the week and the status quo falls back in. But hope always springs eternal in Usnavi’s soul, so every time he says _this one will stick_ 99.9 percent of himself truly believes it, precedent be damned. Now, just like every other time before it, must be the real thing, the pace he’ll be able to maintain forever. Everyone else can do it, after all. Why not him?

***

Usnavi’s got an itch on the back of his leg. Is he allowed to deal with that or is he supposed to just let it go? It’s literally all he can think about, even with the soothingly artificial voice murmuring patient instructions from his laptop.

“Breathe in. And out. Focus on the exhale. Out. Out.”

Isn’t this supposed to be calming? Nobody breathes this quickly. The audio tells him to maintain the rhythm and then goes silent to let him focus on his exhale. Feels like he’s on a tight deadline to blow up an entire birthdayful of balloons.

He gives in and scratches at his leg quickly. Is she still not talking? Has the video stopped playing?

No, don’t look at it. Breathe. Focus on — maybe his wi-fi cut out. What if it _has_ stopped and he stays sitting here forever communing with the cosmic vibrations while he’s waiting for it to kick back in? Just his luck to achieve enlightenment by mistake.

He checks. Oh. It’s still playing. And he’s still only two and a half minutes into a twenty-minute video, Jesus. Try again. In. Out. In—

“If you lose focus, bring your mind back to your breath. In, out…”

“I already did,” he says, annoyed. She told him to inhale while he was on his exhale and it fucked up his rhythm.

Persisting through it, he lets himself settle into the universe, mindful and accepting, totally undistracted by the fact that the itch has moved to that spot on his back he can’t reach. Acknowledge it and then let it go. Let everything go. He is at peace. He could do this all day. His Facetime is ringing.

“Oh, thank _god_ ,” he says, and answers immediately.

“Hey Usnavi,” Vanessa says. “Whatcha doin’ on the floor?”

“Meditatin’,” he answers, unfolding his legs and stretching them out in front of him. One of his feet is tingling numbly from sitting cross-legged.

“ _Really_?”

“Yup. Don’t look at me like that, it’s meant to help with mindfulness and shit, makes you more aware of how you’re feeling.”

“Huh. How’s that working out for you?”

“Oh, I’m a pro. I only did it for five minutes and I’m already super aware that I feel like I don’t get meditation. It’s just sitting, Vanessa. It’s just _sitting_! There’s nothing to do!”

“Isn’t that the point?”

“Lo se, but I don’t think I even have a chakra. If I do it was probably glued shut at birth. Maybe I should try yoga instead.”

“Yeeeees,” Vanessa says, in her Usnavi-voice. “Muy bueno, I like that idea.”

“Apuesto que sí,” he says, interlacing his fingers to stretch his arms up and making sure his tank top rides up to expose his belly in the process. “This is supposed to be about my brain, not your ogling eyes.”

“What? They always say exercise helps your mind or whatever. Definitely helps mine, send pics.”

“Keep it in your pants, García. Something up? It's early for you.”

“I thought you might want some company. We can hang out while I work.”

Translation: _Vanessa_ wants some company. Not that she’ll ever say it, but Usnavi worries she’s getting a little lonely out west. She seems to like her new housemates okay but living with a couple (at least, a couple you ain’t fuckin’) must mean a lot of third-wheeling. She obviously still loves Nina but Usnavi tries to imagine living with Benny and really can’t picture it, so it must be twice as tough getting used to living with someone who’s simultaneously your best friend and who’s been away leading a totally separate life from you the past three years.

More to the point, Usnavi knows what he misses about Vanessa, and it’s not just the sex or going on dates or the conversations. He misses her _presence_. Working, cooking, reading, no need to talk or interact when it’s enough just knowing that she’s nearby. Maybe that’s what Vanessa’s wanting too. This isn’t quite the same, but it’s the closest they can get.

Of course, if she’s working he can’t really be bouncing around the room distractingly and that’s tough because Usnavi’s been very much _switched on_ recently. Almost uncomfortably so, now he’s started, always wondering what he’s doing next, standing up three seconds after sitting down for a break to clean already-clean surfaces or finding new things to do just to maintain his pace, but he’d endure far worse than sitting still to be around his girl. Vanessa props her phone up and puts her glasses on, looking so damn cute and professional.

Usnavi grabs a slim poetry anthology, and a stress ball that Ruben left here a while ago, and settles in while lying upside-down on the couch with his legs over the back. He likes poetry, whether to understand or to enjoy in non-understanding. Poems don’t frustrate him when he doesn’t get them. Ambiguity feels like part of the experience. He reads, pauses to repeat quotes aloud that remind him of Vanessa or Ruben, cries at words that hit the homes he misses and home he has. Vanessa laughs quietly to herself whenever she hears him sniffling, because she’s more than used to him getting weepy over songs and sounds and stories. This is Usnavi, too small for everything that lives inside him. This is Usnavi, overflowing. He stretches his legs right up above him while he reads, draws shapes with his toes in midair, and wonders what it means to be a dam in a perpetual state of breaking.

***

“Yo,” Usnavi says, answering the phone while he fucks around making breakfast. _Real_ breakfast, he truly is a transformed man. Well, okay, it’s only eggs, but that’s a step up from toast eaten on the way downstairs to work or dry cereal by the handful out the box. “What’s the frequency, Kenneth?”

“No, it’s Ruben?"

“I know, it’s a — never mind, what’s up? Shouldn’t you be goin’ to work already?”

“Yeah, I’m walking to the station now, but I thought I should tell you this before you saw for yourself so it doesn’t surprise you.” Ruben’s voice is sombre.

Usnavi scrambles his eggs around anxiously. “That don’t sound like the cake and presents kinda surprise.”

“I just went past the store. They’ve painted over the grate.”

Usnavi pauses with his hand in midair en route to picking up the salt. “ _My_ grate? At my bodega?”

“Yeah. Are you okay?…Usnavi?”

He finally drops his hand and shakes his head. “Yeah. Yeah, no, I’m fine. ‘Ta bien. Hey, we knew it’d happen sooner or later, right? It’s honestly fine. I gotta go, my eggs are burning, love you, I’m fine, bye.”

“Usnavi—“

“Eggs!” he yells, and hangs up. He’ll feel bad about that later. He stands and looks at the eggs until they start to go black and then turns the heat off. He should scrape those into the bin and soak the pan before it sets, start making breakfast over, stick to his plan. He was gonna shower, do laundry, go to church. On the way home he was gonna check in on the neighbors from his old apartment building. Sra Mendoza had her hip operation last week, and he knows Jenny three floors uphas been struggling on her own, what with the twins and all.

If he goes there, he'll see the grate.

He pulls yesterdays jeans back on over yesterday’s boxers and wears yesterday's socks, leaves the apartment with the burnt eggs still congealing in their pan on the stove. He needs a fucking smoke.

So much for momentum.

*******

“What,” Sonny says, striding across Vanessa’s living room with something in his hand, “are THESE.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Usnavi says, because Sonny’s pushed whatever he’s holding so close to Usnavi’s face that it’s made him go cross-eyed.

“Cigarettes!” Sonny says. Ah, shit. “I _know_ they ain’t Vanessa’s, and Ruben wouldn’t bother to hide it if he was a smoker, so that leaves us one dirty-lunged suspect out of your little trio, don’t it?”

“It was a blip!” Usnavi says. “Just a mistake. I’m quittin’ again, I swear.”

“ _Again_? So this isn’t a one off?”

“Dude, I’m eight years older than y—“ Usnavi trails off as Sonny stares him down. Coño. He could almost forget that Sonny’s a cousin from his dad’s side, because he looks exactly like Usnavi’s mamá right now. “I’m…very sorry?”

“You will be if I find you with these again,” Sonny grumbles. “I’m takin’ these with me so you ain’t tempted.”

“You damn well ain’t takin’ them nowhere,” Usnavi says. “You know if your mom catches you with them I’m catchin’ hands from her, and besides which I ain’t having you goin’ round with no cigarettes, that’s a fine way to start a bad habit.”

“Well, I ain’t leaving them here with you. Throw ‘em off the fire escape?” Sonny suggests.

“I’ll give ‘em to whoever’s smoking in the alley next time I go out. I will!” he insists, at Sonny’s skeptical eyebrows. “I just had a bad day and slipped up, but it was only temporary.”

“Prométeme?”

“Te prometo,” Usnavi says. “I bounce back, kiddo. I’m living the functional life now. Look, I even bought fruit! It’s in a bowl!”

He gestures grandly to the bowl of apples on the table. Sonny nods, appropriately impressed.

“So you’re gettin’ used to downtime then?” he asks, finally tossing the cigarette carton aside. Usnavi will absolutely definitely throw those out, probably. “Found a hobby yet?”

“Hell to the fuck yeah I did,” Usnavi says. “Check it, I been cookin’ every day, three meals. Proper ones, too, got my carbs and protein and whatever all going, not just noodles and candy. Doin’ my dishes every morning too, I’ve got a whole system now. I got an app to do workouts with so that’s at least an hour of exercise a day. And I’m learnin’ sign language because Ruben knows a bit of it and I keep thinking how it’d be nice to be able to talk to him in the same language when he can’t speak, y’know?”

“Wow, you’re really keepin’ busy,” Sonny says. “You goin’ to a class for the sign?”

“Nah, s’all online, man. You can find everythin’ on the internet. Like, I’m doin’ a high school math course too, since I never learned none of that when I was actually at school and I’ll probably need it for jobs someday.”

“Hold the fuck up,” Sonny says. “You hate math. You very specifically said you didn’t wanna do it as a hobby.”

“Well…people change,” Usnavi says, though in point of fact his opinion has stayed much the same, but he gets the sense Sonny won’t let it lie if he says that and Usnavi doesn’t much feel like explaining his reasons. It’s gotta be done. It’ll be worth it.

“In less than a month? You’ve _always_ hated math. The only time I’ve ever heard you drop a c-bomb is when you tried to help me with my homework that time.”

“That never happened! I don’t say that word.” It’s true. Vanessa’s tried to make him say it during dirty talk a few times and he never manages without so much awkward giggling that it kills the mood, which is still better than Ruben who can’t get further than stuttering out the first letter.

“It did so happen! It was all multiplying fractions and you tried to change them to decimal because you thought that might be easier but you didn’t know how to do it and then you yelled at the calculator, remember? Abuela got mad and made you clean the entire kitchen because she said you dirtied it up with your lenguaje obsceno.”

“Uh…no recuerdo. Como sea, I figure if I just work at it I’m bound to get good at it and then I won’t hate it so much! I probably just didn’t try hard enough before.”

“Right,” Sonny says slowly. “So you’re gonna do that at the same time as sign language and an exercise routine and quittin’ smoking and all the other stuff? And you started all this in the past two weeks?”

“Yeah! I’m thinkin about volunteering at Abuela’s church a couple days a week, too they always need an extra pair of hands. And I might start keeping a journal, I found some really cool ways to do it that’s supposed to help you keep everything in order. So I'm pretty on top of things at the moment.”

Actually, Usnavi feels a little off-kilter, truth be told. Like someone’s overcharged his batteries. That’s motivation for you, he figures. Or possibly just nicotine withdrawal. Fruit overdose? Who knows. It’s fine.

“That’s…a hell of a lot to take on all at once, Usnavi.”

“Yeah, but it’s all connected, you see,” heexplains. “I gotta do it all at once, because I’m obviously gonna feel like crap if I ain’t exercise, but that makes food even more important ‘cause I can’t get the full benefits of exercise if I don’t eat proper, and I gotta eat properly to feel better anyway ‘cause I read a bunch of blogs that said about how brain stuff can get worse if you’re deficient in some vitamins, and apparently a high-protein diet’s supposed to help with—well, doesn’t matter, but there’s a bunch of stuff, I been planning my grocery list around it, and I just wanna be less terrible at basic math because it’s everywhere, and then it’s important to get outside and socialize and do good so that’s why I’m gonna start volunteering next, but it ain’t too much, honestly. No point doin’ one thing if all the other stuff’s for shit. It’s about balance, ain’t it?”

“…I-is it?” Sonny says, looking utterly bewildered.

“Yep!” Usnavi takes an emphatically triumphant sip from his mug then pulls an involuntary face.

“What was _that_?” Sonny asks.

“Nothin’. Forgot it wasn’t coffee. I’m tryna switch to green tea.”

“ _Why_?” Sonny says, crossing himself with a look so disgusted you’d think Usnavi just told him he’s switching to drinking water directly from the Hudson.

“The, uh, the internet says that all the coffee I drink might be makin’ me more anxious but I don’t wanna give up caffeine totally, so I figured, you know, green tea. It’s better for you. It’s full of antioxidants.”

“Do you even know what an antioxidant is?

“…S’good for you,” Usnavi says evasively. “And it don’t taste so bad, once you’re used to it.”

He takes another sip and tries to mask his _ugh_ noise with a refreshed _ahhh._ A very small piece of himself jumps out to stand next to Sonny and give him the same _yo what the fuck are you doing_ expression. He ignores them both. He can learn to like it. Everything will fall into place soon.

“Nearly as good as coffee, really,” he adds, desperation in his voice.

“I have to leave now,” Sonny says. “Good talk, cuz.”

*****

** Vanessa. **

“Your boyfriend’s a goddamn disaster waiting to happen,” is how Sonny opens the call.

“Tchyeah, don’t need to tell me twice,” Vanessa says, putting speakerphone on so she can keep sorting her laundry. “Wait, which one?”

“In this case, the one I’m _allegedly_ related to.”

“What’s he done?”

Sonny inhales loudly, winding up for a speech. Vanessa folds some t-shirts, humming to herself.

“So he’s been tellin’ me he wants to pick up some hobbies but didn’t know where to start, right? And I told him to just try a couple things out, experiment with it. Meaning like, maybe go to a dance class once a week, read a couple new books. You know, like a normal person would? Only of course Usnavi’s so fuckin’ extra that he took it to heart times a billion and he’s trying everything out, and I mean _everything_. It’s insane, Vanessa. At this rate I give it a week before he accidentally joins a cult because _‘the internet said it’d be good for me, Sonny’_.”

Vanessa tosses a couple dresses and shirts the end of the bed to hang up later. She kinda likes sorting laundry, though catch her ever telling anyone that. Sometimes she organizes Usnavi’s room because his drawers always look like the Chernobyl of clothes no matter how hard he tries to keep it neat, and she always pretends it’s a big drag but honestly she finds it relaxing. Maybe Sonny should fold more laundry. He sounds like he’s about to bust an artery. “Are you sure you’re not overreacting just a touch here?”

“Trust me. He was — actually, maybe you should sit down for this.”

“I am sitting down.” Vanessa balls a pair of socks and tosses them with perfect accuracy into the open drawer across the room.

“He was _drinking green tea.”_

The next pair of socks misses the drawer by a mile. She picks up the phone to give the conversation her full attention. “Dios mío, is he sick or something?”

“I wish he was just sick. He’s turning into the Pinterest mom I never wanted.”

“Shoulda known something was up when I caught him meditating the other day,” she muses.

Sonny makes an unholy screeching sound. “He was doing what? And you didn’t think to tell me?! _”_

“To be fair, he didn’t seem very into it,” she says. “You might not be too late to save him. How far gone is he? Does he have mason jars full of oats everywhere? He ain’t makin' _soup_ , is he?”

“No, but he was wearing purple yoga pants last time I was at yours.”

“Oh, those are mine, he just thinks they’re comfy.”

“Can’t picture you in tie-dye, V.”

Vanessa tuts down the phone at him. “Cállate, they’re my chores pants, I don’t wear them outside. Anyway, this ain’t about me.”

“You’re right, we got bigger problems. He said tea was nearly as good as coffee. He said that out loud to me, his own flesh and blood! I shouldn’t have to put up with that shit. See what happens when you ain’t here to keep him in line?”

“Calm the drama, kid,” she says. God save her from the fucking De la Vega family, how did she get so tangled up with them? “I left backup, didn’t I? Ruben will know what to do.”

***

** Ruben. **

“It’s because of the store,” Sonny says. He’s pacing, dizzily fast. “I saw they painted over Abuela, those cabrones, and it’s painted over his brain too, and now he’s turning into a lifestyle blog and we have to stop him before he starts spamming us all with listicles of Top Ten Spiritual Benefits Of Eating A Kombucha every five minutes.”

“I don’t know what a kombucha is,” Ruben says.

“Me either, and I don’t wanna find out, so are you with me?”

Ruben presses his fingers to his temples. He’s either getting a headache or there’s just a whole lot of Sonny happening at him right now. “With you on what _?_ You said you were coming over for medical advice and I thought it was some kind of emergency, then you just came in and yelled at me about hot drinks for the last —” he checks his watch “— seventeen minutes.”

“It is an emergency! Come on, man, what’s one of the top three things you’d associate with Usnavi, pick a beverage.”

“He did used to drink like eight cups of coffee a day, he could stand to cut down.”

“What kind of answer is that?” Sonny demands, slamming his hands on the table. Ruben suppresses a flinch, not successfully enough for Sonny to miss it. He dials his volume back. “Shit, sorry, man. But this is serious. He meditated, Ruben!”

“What’s wrong with that? It’s considered a legitimate therapeutic tool by a lot of professionals, you know. And this is supposed to be about what Usnavi wants, not what you think is “cool”.” Ruben makes air quotes around the word _cool_ before he can stop his fingers moving. Good God. And to think half his job involves talking to teenagers, it’s a miracle his students don’t laugh in his face every second of the day.

“If I thought he was enjoyin’ it I wouldn’t be here but he’s the only person I know who could burn himself out by trying too hard to relax. Vanessa agrees with me.”

Ruben sighs. It’s true that Usnavi has been kind of intense recently, but then Usnavi’s always pretty intense, and so’s Ruben. Which, come to think of it, might be damning in itself. “I’ll give it to you that I might not have the clearest perspective on people not overdoing it. I did wake up to him organizing the closet at five AM the other day and it seemed sort of odd. I didn’t think to ask at the time.”

“See!” Sonny crows, but quietly, which Ruben appreciates.

“Let’s say you’re right, what would you want me to do about it anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Sonny admits. “I’d just feel better if you’re involved, you're good at fixing things.”

Ruben unwillingly feels himself brightening at the compliment. Dammit, he’s easily bought. “Fine. Come on, let’s go harsh some buzz.”

“We’re going right now?”

“No time like the present.” Ruben grabs both their jackets and shoos Sonny towards the door.

“Aint we at least gonna figure out what to say first? We could do it intervention style, write a letter explaining how his addiction to never sitting the hell down for two minutes is negatively affecting everyone’s lives. Make a powerpoint or something.”

The headache threatens again. “Jeez, you really are Usnavi’s cousin through and through, aren’t you?”

“¡Gracias!” Sonny chirps, then, “ _hey_ , wait a minute—“

“We’re just going to go and have a human conversation using our words and no homemade banners or pamphlets or informational videos,” Ruben says. “I know, I'm no fun at all. Come on. And maybe tone the theatrics down just a fraction.”

“Why does everyone always _say_ things like that to me,” Sonny asks, raising both arms up and directing his question towards the sky like he’s hoping god might send him a answer.

“I can’t imagine,” Ruben mutters.

***

“I don’t understand?” Usnavi says, looking from Ruben to Sonny with a frown.

“Let me put it more simply,” Sonny says, holding is hands up like a picture frame to set the scene in. “You need to fuckin’ stop.”

“…Why?” Usnavi seems genuinely bemused by the idea he might be overdoing it. Ruben wonders if this is what it’s like to talk to _him_ mid-project, and mouths a silent apology to his mom for all those years.

“Because this ain’t you," Sonny says. “All your classes and the lifestyle guru shit you've been feeding into your head, it ain’t you.”

"That’s the _point_ ," Usnavi says, rolling his eyes. "It’s a better version of me. New! Improved! Upgraded! Can now multiply a number and wash dishes and remember to do a thing!"

“Dishes aren’t done,” Sonny points to the mess out on the kitchen countertop. “You’re not dressed. I thought you told me you had a system. Dishes in the morning, you told me. Don't seem to be working. Did you eat lunch today? Weren’t you supposed to be getting a haircut?”

Usnavi touches the side of his hair where the buzzcut’s growing out into a fluffy halo, definitely not recently cut. “Okay, so I forgot a couple things, that ain’t anything new. And who are you coming in here judgin’ the state of my kitchen?”

“I ain’t judging, I don’t care if your dishes are washed. I’m sayin’ you been juggling too many things and you’re starting to drop ‘em all, so maybe your plan needs some overhaul.”

“I just lost track of time,” Usnavi says. “I did a bunch of math stuff, it’s still productive.”

“Alright,” Ruben says. He’s been sitting things out, but he’s coming round to Sonny’s point more as the conversation goes on. Usnavi’s wearing that frazzled semi-electrocuted look he’d always devolve into around 4pm when he worked at the store, which is not the face of someone who’s spending a cheerfully chill month of unemployed self-discovery. “What were the math lessons about?”

“I mean, you’re kinda putting me on the spot here,” Usnavi says, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “It was. Math. Solve for x and all that. Numbers?”

“Yes, I assumed numbers,” Ruben says, “but what did you _learn?”_

“It was…I learned…I did the lessons. I did _._ And some of it made sense at the time. I ain’t stupid,” Usnavi adds, defensively. "I just don't remember it right now."

“I never said you were stupid. You’re doing so many things than none of it’s sticking, is what we’re saying. Why so much at once, querido? What’s the hurry?”

Sonny adds, “are you even enjoying any of this shit you're doing?"

“You’re the one who told me to try things out!” Usnavi complains. He points at Ruben. “And _you’re_ the one who’s always sayin’ shit about how physical and mental health are so related. What, now you're both kvetchin’ because I actually listened to you? No pleasing some people, is there?”

“I definitely didn’t tell you to do any of this,” Ruben says. “Pretty sure I specifically told you to take things slow, actually, not to channel all your therapy into every aspect of your life in one giant woosh until your head explodes.”

“I—“ Usnavi says. “That’s…no, you’re wrong, that’s not what I’m doing. Or. I mean, I have to, but it’s not a bad thing, I—you don’t understand, I gotta do it all so that it all works. I need it all to work."

“So that _what_ works?” Sonny asks, frustrated. “We ain’t tryna bring you down or anything, Usnavi. I just don’t _get_ it. Why are you being so stubborn about this? You must know as well as we do this ain’t makin’ you happy.”

“I,” Usnavi says. “It, you don’t, I’m not—it’s a—I—godmotherfucking dammit sonofabitch!”

He makes a spasmy gesture like he’s throwing something across the room, and just _leaves_. No door slam or rage, one second he’s there and the next he’s gone.

“Uh,” Ruben says, too surprised to call after him. “¿Que?”

“That definitely didn’t go how I wanted it to,” Sonny says. “I told you we shoulda prepared letters.”

***

** Usnavi ** **.**

Pigeons peck at the birdseed Usnavi’s been scattering round his feet. He squirms uncomfortably on the damp ground and shoves the empty paper bag back in his pocket alongside all the other crap that his warmest jacket has built up over winter: crumpled receipts and spare change and an green apple flavor chapstick; a single glove, no idea what happened to the other one; a few loose Starbursts that have half-melted out of their paper; one of Ruben’s stim toys, a necklace with a chewable pendant that he’s been meaning to return for like three months now. Usnavi fumbles through the detritus for a slip of paper.

“Got your ticket, Abuela,” he says, picks some lint off it before showing it to the headstone he’s leaning against. He only really plays when he’s coming to see her. It’s not the same now she’s gone. “I used your numbers, but para ser honesto I don’t think we’ll ever win buying tickets at someone else’s bodega. Especially not _that_ one, they stack their cereals wrong. What kinda sickoputs the boxes laying down? Ain’t nobody got standards no more.”

He sighs, thinking about his own bodega, the fresh grey paint he’d detoured past specifically to stare at before making his way to the cemetery. Obviously he didn’t stay in New York only for the mural or the store, and staying didn’t get rid of all the problems that took him to within an inch of leaving in the first place. Sometimes he still dreams of making his home on a quiet beach. But the grate was the sign and later the symbol, something to remind him he made the choice right on the days where all his doubts are loudly longing for warmer winter weathers.

“I’m glad I didn’t leave, don’t get me wrong,” Usnavi tells Abuela. “It’s just hard being here sometimes. Sonny’s right, I lost track. Started doin’ what I thought I _should_ be doin’ instead of chasing what I wanted. I ain't very good at this.”

He made a fucking fool of himself, didn’t he? Not that it’s the first time either Sonny or Ruben have seen him do that. Still embarrassing. And there’s dirty dishes in the sink and he missed half his alarms today, forgot to do half the shit he said he would. They were right, he’s cramming in too much too soon, throwing everything at the wall at once to see what sticks. God, he always hopes so hard. Every damn time he pushes it down or forgets for a while, he hopes it's the last he'll have to see of it. It always comes back like a rash. Doesn’t he ever learn?

“I just thought…well, whatever. I know what you’d say, but I ain’t so sure I should listen my heart either. What if it keeps me screwing up the same ways forever? Or if I do change into someone new, you and Mama and Pai ain’t ever gonna know me as that guy, and what if he ain’t someone you’re proud of?”

Tucking the lotto ticket back inside his pocket, Usnavi's fingers brush against Ruben’s necklace. He pauses, rubbing his thumb against it. “Guess I already have changed, though, huh? Y’know, I talk about him all the time, I forget I don’t even know how you or my folks woulda reacted. I wish I’d had enough time to tell you. You’d all be cool, ¿verdad? I’m still your Usnavi, even when I got a boyfriend.”

He pulls the necklace out to bite gently at the pendant, feeling the satisfying give under his teeth. It really is a soothing sensation, especially when he’s overamped and jittery. Being truthful, it’s more because of that than forgetfulness he hasn't got round to returning it to Ruben yet. “I know you’d love him. He treats me and Vanessa right, you don’t need to worry there, and he gets me as much as Vanessa does, except in a different way.”

The pendant is smooth and soft silicone, a red circle suspended on a silky black cord. Usnavi goes to put it away then double-takes, stares at it for a long, long moment.

“Sometimes, I feel like he can see right inside my head and pick out things I don't tell anyone,” he says slowly. “Abuela, I gotta go, there’s…there’s something I need to do.

***

“I wish you’d take a phone with you when you make dramatic exits,” Ruben says when Usnavi gets back to Vanessa’s place. He’s lying on the couch with his own phone in his hand, raising one eyebrow at Usnavi over the top of it. “You weren’t off meeting any potential murderers again, were you?”

Usnavi takes his coat off, perches on the arm of the couch by Ruben’s head, feet tucked up so he’s crouching. “I went to see Abuela. Sonny left?”

Ruben sits up, matching Usnavi’s posture. “Yeah, well, once we’d said _what the hell was that_ sixty times at each other we ran out of conversation and we didn’t know when you’d be back so he went home. Do you wanna explain literally any of that?"

“Only if you explain something to me first,” Usnavi says, taking the chewy necklace out of his pocket and dangling it out between them. Ruben tilts his head in a question. “This ain't really yours, is it? You left it here on purpose, and all the other things. When did you figure it out?”

“It was when we got high together,” Ruben answers, with an immediacy that’s startling. “You were playing with the tangle? I think subconsciously I always knew, you seemed so _familiar_ , but that was the first time I’d actually realized it. At first I started leaving other stuff around to confirm the hypothesis, and…then I just kept doing it because it seemed to have positive results.”

“I’m not an experiment,” Usnavi says. “You can’t go round testing theories on me just ‘cause you’re intrigued.”

“I was trying to —“

“I know you were tryna help. I ain’t a lab rat. You got no right to try and…and give me treatment, not without my permission. I wouldn’t have kept any of them if you’d told me, you _know_ that I wouldn’t.”

Ruben winces, shamefaced, which he damn well should be. “I…yes, I did know. But I wasn’t trying to, to cure you or treat you or anything, I _swear._ I should’ve told you but I thought if I did it this way it didn’t have to be because of a label you didn’t want, it could just be because you’re Usnavi and you like having things to play with and it would make you less stressed. I guess I didn’t consider all the implications.”

“You mean you didn’t think I’d figure it out.”

“That too. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry that I’m probably not as sorry as I should be.”

Usnavi winds the necklace cord around his wrist. “I only noticed ‘cause it ain’t your color. You’d never buy red for yourself.”

“Wouldn’t have felt right if it was blue, though,” Ruben says, with a shrug and a faintly apologetic smile.

“Ha,” Usnavi says. “No, it really wouldn’t.”

He should be mad. He should be so much angrier than he is. This isn’t Ruben’s choice to make, and Usnavi made his own choice years ago. There’s a tangle toy in the pocket of the jeans Usnavi left on his floor last night, there’s a little metal slinky on the coffee table that he spent 20 minutes absently shifting from hand to hand this morning, on the kitchen counter there’s a cheap ring with two sections that spin around each other when he pushes his thumb against it that he’s started playing with it whenever he’s waiting for the coffee to brew. Until earlier today, he’d thought it was all Ruben’s stuff, and he's only just figured out that all of it was probably bought specifically for Usnavi, dropped casually into his lap or passed over while he's focusing on something else. It’s help he never woulda let himself ask for.

His hands are moving loud with anxiety and Ruben doesn’t tell him to stop. Ruben’s hands are loud too, in their own ways, at the moment scratching a fingernail over the ridged material of his cuffs, his sweater the color of the ocean on a summer day. Usnavi stops fighting a current and lets himself fall into a riptide, towards whatever waits for him when it’s over.

“The…uh, the green tea, and the meditation and whatever. I was doing it because…shit.” He grits his teeth but goddammit, he’s going to say it, and he’ll look Ruben in the eye when he does. “Because. I read on the internet it’s supposed to help with symptoms of ADHD. I have ADHD.”

Ruben’s eyes go comically huge. Simultaneously, Usnavi thinks _that wasn’t so bad_ and _what the fuck did you say that for, why can’t you keep your big mouth shut?!_ “But you already knew that, yeah?” he adds.

“I did,” Ruben confirms. “But knowing is very different to you telling me.”

“Everyone probably knows. But I’ve never _told_ anyone, I don’t think. Not since I was nine, and even then was mostly other people doin’ the tellin’ at me.” He wasn’t intending to talk about this part, but now he’s started it just comes out. Fuckin’ momentum, Usnavi’s got no defenses against it. “I’ve said how I was in special ed for a while, right?”

Ruben nods and waits, patient.

“I…didn’t like it very much,” Usnavi says quietly, sliding down to sit on the couch cushions properly. “I _hated_ it. My parents didn’t get it, not at first, and it was the first time I ever felt like they’d let me down.They tried to get me back in my normal class later but ended up I had to stay till the end of semester, so I was there about…four, five months total? Ish? I always used to be scared I’d get sent back.”

“What happened?” Ruben asks. They’re mirror image body language, crosslegged facing towards the centre of the couch, Ruben leaning in and whispering like he’s trying to keep the conversation secret from the empty apartment around them.

“Probably nothing so bad as whatever you’re imagining,” Usnavi says, smiles at him, but it's not enough to cut through the old, childish sadness sticking in his own chest. “Not everything’s a big terrible tragedy, querido.”

“Well, even tiny baby tragedies deserve attention,” Ruben says, stubborn. “Especially if they stick around for seventeen years causing trouble.”

“I was a kid, everything seems like a big deal at that age.” He drums his hands on his knees then laughs at himself, holding his hands up. “See, that’s a _negative behavior_. Guess the lessons didn’t stick, huh?”

“They made you feel bad? About fidgeting?” Ruben takes the bottom edge of Usnavi’s shirt and tugs it between his fingers.

“They’d do this thing where I had to sit with my hands out on the table to keep them still. And it hurts not to move when I need to. They don’t know what boredom _really_ feels like. Like...drowning. She told me not to make excuses.” Usnavi shrugs, wiggles his own fingers out in front of himself because who’s gonna tell him not to? “I don’t know why it seemed so scary, in retrospect. I coulda just ignored them.”

“You were nine,” Ruben says. “You were just a kid. They were adults, _teachers_. They had all the power.”

“It was just normal school punishments. Bad reports and losing recess and having to sit in a room by myself,” Usnavi says. He doesn’t know why he’s arguing. “I mean, you hear some heinous shit that happens to people, right?”

“A punishment’s a punishment,” Ruben says, with low, fierce insistence. “And they gave it to you just for being who you are, to train you into being someone else. They made you feel unsafe and then they took the all the tools you use to make yourself feel safer and made those unsafe too, for six hours a day every weekday, and they said it was for your own good.”

“ _Quiet hands, Usnavi,”_ Usnavi says, with more bitterness than he knew he still felt. Ruben’s eyebrows furrow so hard they almost meet in the middle. “And then you show up. In your goddamn sweaters, all “what up, here, I got you a freakin’ slinky to play with” and you make it all sound like a good thing. I stay away from this shit for seventeen years just because some _bitch_ of a teacher used to make me sit with my hands on the table while she told me everything that was wrong with me, and you make me want to face it again. Who gave you the _right?”_

“I could do that with the rest of it, too,” Ruben says, earnestly. He leans in even closer, fingertips resting on Usnavi’s knees. “It doesn’t have to be like that. It shouldn’t have been like that. I could help you make it something good.”

God, he already has been. Doesn’t he know that? Does he think Usnavi would even be able to have this conversation if Ruben’s very presence in his life hasn’t been scratching quietly away at thoughts so old they’re not even processes any more so much as part of his permanent wallpaper? Seventeen _fucking_ years.

“I-I was hoping if I just admitted it to myself, maybe that counted as accepting it, and as long as I read enough and tried hard enough and did the right things in the right order maybe it would go away forever,” he says. “Stupid, right? Whole reason I get so touchy about therapy is ‘cause I don’t want nobody tryna fix me or make me act different, and then I just go ahead and do it to myself anyway.”

“Cheaper than letting a doctor do it, at least,” Ruben says, and Usnavi does laugh at that. “It’s not stupid. You’re not stupid.”

“It is what it is,” Usnavi says, which isn’t any kind of real response but he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Are you gonna tell Sonny? He was worried you left because you were mad at him earlier.”

Usnavi bites the edge of his thumb and shrugs. It’s one thing talking about it with Ruben, someone who understands on an innate level a thing that’s only ever meant being lonely before. It’s something else entirely to tell Sonny, or Vanessa, or the world. People can love you and still not get it at all.

Ruben takes his hand. “It’s your choice. I’m sorry if I made you feel like you had to tell me.”

“I don’t wanna run out of time again,” Usnavi says. "I don’t wanna have any regrets, or—or keep letting what other people might think get in the way. But some people their opinion actually matters, and I got no idea how he’ll react. I’m not even sure how _I’m_ reacting.”

“He might not understand totally, but he’ll be on your side. Sonny thinks the world of you, cariño.”

“For now,” Usnavi says. “What if I embrace this side of me and it turns out this side of me is actually a huge jerk? Who knows? You don’t know.”

“Alright, now you’re just actively digging for ways to feel bad,” Ruben says, kissing him hard. “You’re not gonna lose anyone by being more yourself. You’re our Usnavi, and we all love you so goddamn much. I promise that isn’t going to change.”

***

This is _Vanessa_ , of all people, Vanessa shouldn’t be nervewracking, but Usnavi is terrified, same as he was terrified telling Sonny last night. Ruben insists it’ll be fine - “if anything this just shows she has a type” - but it’s still reassuring to have him sitting over in the armchair for background moral support while Usnavi calls her.

“What up,” she says. "You look grouchy. That's my steez."

“I gotta tell you something,” he says, forgetting a hello in his nervousness. “Don’t make a joke about it. Or maybe just don’t say anything, I ain’t wanna talk about it yet.”

“Shit, you’re not pregnant, are you?”

“ _Vanessa._ ”

“Sorry! It’s a reflex. Go ahead, babe.”

“I have ADHD,” he says. It’s no easier the third time. Maybe he’ll get used to it.

Vanessa raises her eyebrows. She’s slouching in her chair with the dusty remnants of the day’s hastily-removed makeup still on her face, beautiful even post-work slobby, or maybe that only enhances her, and she’s watching him through the screen with something deep and imperceptible in her mascara-smudgy eyes. Usnavi wonders whether she’s ever spoken to Ruben about any of this, whether she remembers the times it’s almost come up before Usnavi talked around it or got all prickly or straight up ditched mid-conversation.

“Okay, honey,” she says softly. “Okay then. So! What should we talk about instead?”

Usnavi nods gratefully and takes the offered exit. “Look what I got back last night.”

Reaching to the side, he pulls up his newly-returned guitar. It was a fifteenth birthday present, already second-hand, and Usnavi had loved it deeply for three years before life got busy. Then it mostly had sat in the corner gathering dust til Sonny showed an interest and borrowed it long-term a few years ago. It’s back home with Usnavi now. He’s a little rusty but he’s not forgotten the shape of playing it, like meeting up with a friend you haven’t seen for years and immediately falling back into a rapport.

Vanessa claps with delight. She never used to do that. Picked it up off Ruben, Usnavi notes. Funny how they all pass pieces of themselves between each other. “Shit, I forgot you even had that!” she says. “I ain’t seen you play for years.”

“It was Sonny’s idea. He says instead of trying to be a new me I should maybe try and appreciate the old me a little more. He never really got into it, anyway.”

“He’s a real sharp kid, ain’t he?” Vanessa says affectionately, and Usnavi beams with cousinly pride.

“Sure is. He ain’t get that from me.” Picking down each open string individually, Usnavi feels more than hears the places where it’s minutely wrong and twiddles accordingly with the tuning pegs. “I’m still gonna keep trying some new things out, I think, but it’s nice having somethin' I already know I love to come back to.”

“It suits you. Making music. I don’t know why we didn’t think of it first.”

“Guess I sort of lost touch. I didn’t even realize I missed playing till I started again.” He strums open once more and now all the strings sing right. Usnavi knows pitch down to his core.

Vanessa says, “hey, totally unrelated to anything we’re definitely not talking about…" and Usnavi picks out a few anxious minor chords. "I love you. _All_ of you. don’t you fuckin’ forget it, Usnavi De la Vega.”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he says. C major.

“I hate to say I told you so, Usnavi, but I’m gonna anyway,” Ruben calls over from his chair.

Usnavi smiles down at his guitar. It ain’t so simple as a couple conversations and problem solved, but there’s a happy E major feeling in his heart right now that he plays out in a quick scale. It sounds like home. It sounds like him. It sounds like a long time ago. Things are okay so far. Three people know, and the world didn’t end. Usnavi lets his hands take over the progressions and the music that comes out of them is fast and bright and so, so loud.


End file.
